Category Archives: Contemplation

Thanksgiving vs. “friendsgiving”

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Today, we’re departing for our now annual European Thanksgiving week trip, and this year, we’re headed to Spain. This is our fourth European Thanksgiving trip together: in 2013, we were in Germany; in 2014, we went to Vienna, Austria, and Budapest, Hungary; in 2015, we trekked throughout Switzerland. In our two Thanksgivings before that, we were in Ocean City, Maryland in 2011, and Puerto Rico in 2012. It’s been a trip that we both look forward to and is a new tradition we have as a family of 2.

Despite being away for the actual Thanksgiving week, I love Thanksgiving and still try to have a Thanksgiving feast with friends in the week or two before we leave. I have a lot of fond memories of having Thanksgiving dinners growing up with my family, when we were more or less altogether and somewhat cohesive. The last Thanksgiving I was home for was in November 2003, which is now over 13 years ago. It was the Thanksgiving of my last year of high school, and little did I know that I’d never come back home for Thanksgiving ever again. I’d never have a reason to. Why would you come home for Thanksgiving when your mother and your aunt are Jehovah’s Witnesses, your dad doesn’t want to participate when your mom doesn’t, your cousins and their wives don’t even want to all be in the same room together, your uncle would rather work overtime and get paid time and a half than spend a traditional family meal together, and your brother is dead because he committed suicide? Thanksgiving with family is special and matters only when the family you are going back to matters and cares about the holiday and you. If they don’t care about the holiday or you, then it’s not special and it doesn’t matter. It’s just another day on the calendar, and here in the U.S., you get at least a random Thursday off for it.

That’s why I don’t like it when people call Thanksgiving meals with friends “friendsgiving.” I completely understand why people feel a need to differentiate it; Thanksgiving is *supposed* to be with family, so you need a marker to denote that your modified Thanksgiving meal was with friends. But what if you don’t have a family, or your family doesn’t care about having a Thanksgiving meal with you either because they don’t care about Thanksgiving, you, or both, and all you have are your friends? What if you choose to have your Thanksgiving celebration with friends? Why should that be denigrated to a “friendsgiving” as opposed to a Thanksgiving? My Thanksgiving meal the last several years has been with friends; I’m not calling it “friendsgiving.” And I correct people when they say, “Oh, you had friendsgiving early.” It’s insensitive without them even realizing it.

 

Givers, takers, and matchers

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Last night, Chris and I watched an Adam Grant presentation for Dreamforce, where Grant discussed the concept of givers, takers, and matchers in life and at work. After a lot of research and data, he found that the best sales performers were givers, but at the same time, the very worst were also givers, too. It wasn’t so cut and dry as to givers belonging in one performance area, matchers in  second, and takers in a third.

In an ideal world, we’d all be givers. We’d expect nothing in return when we give, whether it’s our time, money, or energy. But we do not live in an ideal world. My mom taught to be a matcher. She said whenever people do something nice for me, I need to do something back for them. But she took that meaning to the extreme; if someone took her out to dinner today, she’d offer to take them out to dinner tomorrow, or next week. That always sounded a bit too forward and stupid to me, and it always drove me crazy. But as crazy as I thought it was, in many ways, I mimicked it for better or worse without always realizing it. It’s taken me a lot of time to try to wean myself out of that thinking.

It’s hard to be a giver, though, when you’ve been burned by a lot of people in the past. It’s hard to let another person borrow money when so many people in the past have borrowed and never paid it back. It’s hard to chip in for a birthday cake for a colleague when that colleague doesn’t really seem to appreciate the thought that went behind that. Sometimes, i think, I rather just give money to a homeless person on the street or a charity (which I actually do). In those cases, someone in real need really needs your help. I definitely don’t think I’m a taker, but I’m somewhere between a giver and a matcher depending on the circumstance.

Vampire

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My medical tests results came back, and everything looks good (especially my good cholesterol; the doctor was so impressed 🙂 — except the doctor says that I am low on vitamin D and should consider taking a supplement. As soon as I read this, I immediately thought, hmmm, is that because of all the sunblock I wear every single day? “Yes, you are such a vampire,” my friend joked. Vitamin D is primarily taken in by the body via sun exposure, and I read that over 50 percent of Americans are deficient in this vitamin, which is why oftentimes cereals, breads, and milk-type beverages are fortified with vitamin D. I drink milk almost every day, I thought. I guess that isn’t enough. Leafy greens like Swiss chard and kale actually do not have vitamin D as I originally thought; they just have a lot of other vitamins and are high in calcium.

Now I’m not sure what supplement to choose. The supplements for vitamin D often have some sort of oil since vitamin D needs to be taken with a fat to properly be absorbed by the body. The Kirkland Signature brand (from Costco) has corn oil as the oil in their supplements; that just sounds disgusting. The more popular and higher rated oils are made with coconut. Who wants to take a pill filled with corn oil?

New doctor

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I finally had my doctor’s appointment with a general practitioner today, and it went pretty well. She had great “bedside manner,” asked lots of questions about my life and family history, and was very personable and took her time. I didn’t feel rushed at all. The nurse drew my blood for the lipid panel, thyroid, and other usual tests, and they (sigh) gave me proper Tdap vaccine (take that, whooping cough/pertussis). The doctor asked many questions about my family and my own health.

After discussing my brother and mom, the doctor asks, “Have you exhibited any symptoms or bouts of depression or paranoia?”

Me: “No, not that I’m aware of. I am fine. I think I am fine… But don’t we all think we are fine?”

She smiled and continued writing.

I thought about that on the walk home, though. Don’t we all think we are fine? When do you have people strong enough in your life to point out when you really do not seem fine and need help, people who don’t walk on egg shells and just pretend that everything is fine to keep the peace?

Unexpected wedding card

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We received a wedding card in the mail a few days ago from one of my San Francisco friends I met through my mom’s Jehovah’s Witness congregation. The card had a very long, thoughtful, and sweet message. I’m always touched whenever I open a card that anyone gives me nowadays and the written message is more than just a line or two; pretty much no one seems to do that nowadays, nor do people value it. But it always makes me happy and wish that more people would value little things like this that require a lot of time and thought. I feel like I am getting old and dating myself by saying this, but there’s such an emphasis on things being fast and convenient nowadays that we rarely stop to appreciate things like a handwritten card or a homemade meal. My eyes feel like bleeding when I think of future children and how they may or may not value these things.

Rush hour in Manhattan

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I was walking up to Grand Central from my office after work, avoiding the 33rd street stop on the 6 to get on at 42nd and Grand Central, when I stopped at a red light and observed all these other commuters rushing to get home. Everyone is doing their own thing, on their phones, talking or texting, hurriedly rushing to get somewhere after work. Amidst all the noise, I thought about how anonymous you can really be in this city. There are so many people here that if you died, no one would really care that much. You’d probably be forgotten.

I looked on at the usual homeless guys who stand or sit around near Grand Central Station as they said the same things over and over again to people passing them by, hoping to get a few extra coins for their food or drugs or whatever it was that sustained them day to day. No one really pays them much attention. No one pays the people who walk around them on the street very much attention. And it made me feel so sad. I’ve been in this city for almost eight years now, yet I really haven’t made that many good friends here. I guess I am a lucky person in that I actually met my now-husband here; it’s hard to be single in a city like this that presents so many options and almost encourages a short attention span. New York is a really easy city to be lonely in.

Tax Day

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Tax Day in the U.S. was yesterday, when millions of sad Americans were forced to suck it up and file their taxes. Some received refunds, and others had to write depressing checks to the IRS. We were among the frustrated people who had to write checks.

What is most annoying about tax day every year is the influx of shopping e-mails I get to my shopping email address. I mean, it’s already set up to get sales updates, but on tax day, it’s that number literally times four or five. It’s like all these brands feel like they need to encourage you to spend, spend, spend on tax day. Because sure, even if you didn’t get a tax refund and you had to shell out extra money to the government who misspends most of the dollars it gets, you’ll feel better with retail therapy! Be more materialistic; it will make you happier and more fulfilled!

And every single year since I’ve been a working adult, I have deleted every single one of these emails. I was so annoyed by them this year that I just opted out completely, even for brands I like to look at. Take that, marketers.

 

From others’ views

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It’s been fun and interesting to hear about the wedding from our family and friends’ perspectives. I haven’t had a chance to speak with everyone yet, but the more I talk to them, the more I laugh about things that they have told me. When it’s your own wedding, you can never be aware of every little thing happening around you.

One thing I had no idea about that I learned of tonight during a Google Hangout session with two of my bridesmaids was that during the ceremony when Chris and I were giving our personal vows that we wrote, the girls said that almost every female in the audience was tearing up and dabbing their eyes, and even a handful of males were. All three of my bridesmaids were getting emotional and trying hard to keep it in, with two of them sniffling the whole time. And during Chris’s speech at the reception, when he revealed the meaning behind the table names and Ed’s symbolism, one of them cried almost the whole time. These are all the things I had no idea about because I couldn’t see them myself.

We just got back our full set of professional photos, and I didn’t really see any of this represented, which concerned me a little. It would be great if we could see this documented via photography and would be sad if it were nowhere. We banned photography from the ceremony in hopes that it would help make everyone more present  and in the moment, and so that the photographers wouldn’t have any distractions.

Gift in the mail

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Today, we received a wedding card and check in the mail from one of Chris’s mother’s cousins, who was invited to the wedding but couldn’t attend due to conflicting travel she and her husband had already booked. I was surprised to see this in the mail even after Chris’s mother had told me that this cousin had planned to send us a gift. Unless it is a very close friend or family member, I’d never expect any gifts if the person didn’t attend the wedding.

It’s so weird — the whole wedding gift giving thing. There are friends and family who attended the wedding events and did not give any gift, and then there are friends and family who did not attend any of the events and gave generous gifts. I wonder what their thought process is when they ultimately decide to give or not give a gift and whether it is guilt that drives them (for the sake of having face) or the pure desire to just give.

Cousins and cousins

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The funniest thing about having the majority of close family and friends all in one place for your wedding is seeing what the dynamic is like not just in how they act around each other, but how you act with all of them in one place. Who are you going to spend time interacting with, or the most time interacting with, and who are you going to have the most fun and laughs around?

Having my cousins in the same place with most of Chris’s cousins was interesting and clearly revealed who I cared and didn’t care about the most. Chris’s cousins are like my own family, the functional family I never had, and they are fun and enjoyable to be around. I genuinely enjoy spending time with them and have had many a session when I have laughed so hard that my ribs ended up hurting. With my own cousins, I barely spent any time conversing with any of them, and they made no effort to talk much to me or approach Chris and me at all. In fact, my cousin and his wife and children who came from Redwood City barely said anything to us until I went to their table, and they left without saying goodbye or thanks for having them. My cousin and his wife and son in Brooklyn left without saying bye early… in fact, they barely said hi to me at all. They actively chose not to socialize with anyone and instead were all rude during the reception speeches, talking amongst themselves with whatever gossip and negativity they like to occupy themselves with, and allowing their children to make lots of noise without discipline. This resulted in a lot of glares from Chris’s aunts and uncles table, who actually did care to hear our speeches and came because they truly care about us. Chris’s parents later asked who those people were at that table and suspected they must be my cousins. I’m sure they noticed I barely talked to them at all. It says everything about how much we value each other.

The end of the wedding period is over and is sad because it was so much fun, but it’s kind of nice because now, I have no reason to be proactive or in touch with any of those cousins, or my dysfunctional aunt, who decided to complain about her estranged son and his children she didn’t know about to me, and also came to my wedding wearing jeans. As always, the world revolves around her in her head, even when her niece is getting married. Colleagues later commented that this was the ultimate way to disrespect me and my parents, but in all truth, I really didn’t care and dismissed her presence right away. I’m getting better at ignoring idiocies in my family. It’s the end of my relationship with family members who truly don’t care about me, and I don’t really think about much seriously.